England vs Spain: Odd Opinions

Having beaten the world champions 1-0 on Saturday, I expected the usual up rise in confidence and swagger from most if not all England fans around the country. Capello had named a talented side, filled with a mixture of both experience and youth, which is what most people had been pining for over the last year or so. Lescott partnered Jagielka at the back, with Jones partnering Parker in a defensive midfield pairing. With no Rooney in the squad, it was Darren Bent’s chance to show why he deserves a place in the starting eleven.

 

Without going into too much depth about the match, here is a short summary of the match:

1. First half, England defended
2. Second half, England took a gamble and attacked… for ten minutes, and claimed what turned out to be defining goal
3. England defended for the rest of the game
4. England won

Cue the usual talk of England being back to their best? I think not.

 

Views were diverse- to my surprise.

 

Many people saw that England were playing ‘anti-football’ and that they were outplayed, and outclassed for 90 minutes. Many people even said that England’s performance was not even that great? I would’ve thought that people would be ranting and raving about our newfound chance of winning Euro 2012, but I found that most ‘fans’ chose yet again to slag off their national team!

 

Now here is my view.

 

I always thought the aim of the game of football was to score more goals than the opposition? No? It would appear that most people are still caught up in this ‘philosophy’ of playing football in the right way, and that if you are to win ‘correctly’, you need to have 70%+ possession, and score beautifully crafted goals. There are only two teams in the world that can do this with remarkable success, and they would be Spain and Barcelona. I suppose you could say that Swansea and Wigan are up there with the best teams in the world, just because they play football in the ‘right way’. Sarcasm.

 

Secondly, I didn’t know that there was a wrong way to win a football match? In my opinion, England showcased to the world one of the ways to beat Spain. If you play nice attractive football against the Spaniards, you are going to lose; there is no two ways about it. A defensive, discipline set up is needed, and opportunities need to be taken. This is what England did. Negative stat-men can fire stats that Spain had 71% possession, they had twenty-three attempts on goal against England’s measly three, and they had six corners to England’s one. But look at it in another way… Spain only has two shots on target, which was the same as England. And there was also the small factor that they didn’t score, and England did.

 

England won a game of football against the best international team in the world, and they still cannot avoid masses of critics finding faults. One has to wonder what the reception would’ve been had England lost the game…

 

When people look at the record books in fifty years time, they are not going to see that stats of possession and the shots of goal. They are going to see the score line. England 1 – 0 Spain. That’s all that matters.